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If you guessed that I attended Ed Sheeran’s second concert here in Mumbai, then you guessed absolutely correct!

I’m sure 99.99% of the population would agree with me when I say that you NEED to watch Ed Sheeran in concert at least once – because Ed Sheeran in concert is by far worth the money you’d pay for the ticket, the lines you’d wait in, and all the screaming and shouting of lyrics.

I last watched him when he was touring for Multiply back in 2015 (and obviously I blogged about it (go read about it, thanks!) – Shameless self publicity )

Ed Sheeran released his third studio album in the first half of this year and started touring almost immediately and thus when tickets for his Mumbai concert went on sale in July, I bought them! The concert started at 8 PM and he sang for 1.5 hours and I shouted out lyrics along with him with no tune whatsoever for the whole time.

I went alone for the concert (turns out I’m quite self sufficient that way) and recorded all the songs I had made up my mind to record! There is no comparison to Ed Sheeran singing live and with every song he just makes you realize more and more why it would make absolute zero sense to not be in love with him. He wore a blue kurta, similar to the one he wore last time and looked completely adorable – most importantly, he sang A-Team! A-Team was the first song I heard by Ed back in 2012 and the amount of love that I have for that song is not fathomable.

When he sang Dive, I completely lost my shit (so to say) – Dive is my favourite song off the new album, and then he sang Photograph as well – my favourite song from his previous album!

I had a massively amazing time and I would go back to his concerts any time of any day.

College has been on break since the second week of October. Its our combined diwali vacations and the month long internship break.
Now for the past 2 years, we’ve not really taken a family vacation – mainly because my brother had tons to study and no time to spare. So this time, when we both had ample free time, I was completely adamant about a vacation. At this point, all of us just really, really needed it.

Thus, on the 15th of October (a Sunday), we took off from Mumbai to go visit Goa! I’m not exaggerating when I say that I LOVE the beach! I’m obsessed with the water, and the waves, and the simple, happy feelings that beaches create in you. Our trip was four nights long and I’m proud to say, a complete success!

Ever since I’ve learnt how to properly use my expensive camera, I’ve actually gotten a bit better at taking pictures and thus I ended up taking some really beautiful pictures. And ever since my mother gifted me a polaroid camera, I ended up taking some really cute polaroid pictures as well!

I collected adorable sea shells, bought really cute foot jewelry and purchased tons of souvenirs (I have a definite thing for them) and had a truckload of fun – right from spending every spare moment on the beach to road tripping to various places. I clearly remember, at one point, I was standing on the beach, near the edge of the sea with just enough water washing against my ankles and I remember thinking, ‘I love this. I love the beach, and the water and I love feeling that I was born for this.’

This month has been really exciting for me, mainly because 3/5 One Direction boys released new music! The only upside of them being apart is that theres five times more music than usual. So here’s whats been on repeat for most of this month:

Too Much To Ask – Niall Horan

Dusk till Dawn – Zayn feat. Sia

Your Song – Rita Ora

I hate you, I love you – Gnash feat. Olivia O’Brien

There’s Nothing Holding me Back – Shawn Mendes

Seeing Blind – Niall Horan feat. Maren Morris

Boys – Charli XCX

Find You – Nick Jonas

The Night We Met – Lord Huron

Additionally, I heard three new songs yesterday and approved of them right away – Bedroom Floor by Liam Payne; Just Like You by Louis Tomlinson; Personal by The Vamps.

My reading this year has actually been really quite slow – Its almost the end of October and I’ve just managed to finish 21 books this year. To be honest, I have zero clue as to why I’ve read so less this year and because of the less reading, instead of doing the usual book lists that I do; I decided to do a list of just my favourite reads from this year. So here are my Top 4 Reads from 2017!

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Sáenz:My brother gifted me this book that I found on yet another list of books featuring LGBTQ+ protagonists. The book narrates the story of Aristotle, a teenager who makes a new friend in Dante and the two start spending all their time together. Inevitably, Dante falls in love with Aristotle who has spend all his childhood and all of this teenage years running away from people. The book is heartbreaking and breathtaking at the same time and leaves you angry at various points. My favourite part is this conversation between Aristotle and Dante’s mother when he rightly remarks, “There are worse things in the world than a boy who likes to kiss boys and girls who like to kiss girls.”

The Boyfriend by R. Raj Rao:
This is book about a 40 year old gay journalist who falls in love with a 19 year old boy he meets on the Churchgate Station in Mumbai. The book spans through various years and various different people that come in the journalist’s life. There were tons of parts in the book at felt realistic and unrealistic at the same time. The reason I liked this book very much was that it had everything that any of the other LGBTQ+ books I’ve read (kissing, holding hands, sex) and all this was happening in India. The book was completely different from any other book by any other Indian author and I completely loved it!

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell:
Outliers is a non-fiction book that talks about successful people and how they become successful people. I absolutely loved this book. It was by far my favourite book of the year. Through careful analysis and relatable examples, Malcom Gladwell describes how some people succeed and some people don’t. For every single thing he says in his book, he has five different things ready to back it up with. His explanations and theories make a lot of sense and once you start reading, you cannot be putting this book down. He connects ordinary people with exceptionally successful people and finds patterns in the craziest of things. My favourite line is this book with a million great lines is this, “Knowledge of a law student’s test scores is of little help if you are faced with a classroom of clever law students.”

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli:
The book’s main story revolves around Molly, a 17 year old girl who’s had exactly 26 unrequited crushes throughout her life. Molly has a twin sister Cassie, who on the other hand has had exceptional success with boys and girls alike. Molly and Cassie are best friends but their life turns upside down when Cassie starts dating a girl they meet at a concert. Molly instantly starts feeling lonely and at some level, really jealous of her sister. Amongst all of this, Cassie is constantly trying to set Molly up with her girlfriend’s best friend, Will. This book hit a major chord with me and there were various parts that were very relatable. I love Becky Albertalli’s writing and with every sentence she makes you feel more as a part of the story and less just a reader.

The past two weeks of this month, other than all studying and cramming of A LOT of case laws, my two weeks have just been 24 hours everyday of Harry Styles.

I think everyone already knows this – but for someone who doesn’t, I have unreservedly been a huge fan of One Direction for years. And Harry Styles has been my sad, little weakness since I discovered the band in 2012. Harry Styles released his solo album on 12th May (GO LISTEN) and I fell in love all over again.

Starting this Monday (15th May), Harry Styles spent all week on The Late, Late Show with James Corden which meant that every new day it had a ton of new videos for me to drool over and cry about. There’s something unique about being a 20 year old adult and still obsessing over boy band material: You feel no shame whatsoever in making the said boy band material your phone’s wallpaper.

Since the last few days have just been all Harry Styles, I have also been just asking everyone I know to watch the sam videos that I have been watching on repeat all day (also, all night)

Here’s one of my absolute favourite videos of him, singing my favourite song from his album and wearing smashing clothes and making me really emotionally frustrated.

If you haven’t yet listened to the album or haven’t been fully convinced to watch any of the above said beautiful videos, take a look at this;

I mean, do you know of other really, really cute singers today who can pull this off?
Do yourself a favour: Listen to Harry Styles, and then watch the videos and then watch as you transform into an emotional and sexual mess.

41) Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang:This book starts with a young girl driving her Mercedes off a bridge and ending up in a coma. The book is then narrated by one boy who cares way too much and is, and has been invisible to everyone for as far as he can remember. The book is a long struggle of people dealing with a girl who goes off to commit suicide and try to come to terms with it even though most them didn’t like/care about it. Though the book is really good, I didn’t really feel for this girl and I was kind of silently hoping for her to die.

42) The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard:War stories are some of my favourite stories and thus again, I loved this book. The Book of Aron is narrated by Aron (who’s six, seven or eight years old) and is about how Aron and his family are tormented by the Germans during the Second World War. The book is innocent and sad and ends really sad which I’ve got little bit used to now – its war; they don’t end happy.

43) Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald:You need serious long attention spans for this book. This book is so complex and brilliant that just flipping through pages will never be enough. In all honesty however, I finished this book in a hurried manner and never really understood it; it was more of a thing to do ticked off my list. As much as I enjoyed The Picture of Dorian Gray, I couldn’t get the same amount of satisfaction from this one.

44) The King of Torts by John Grisham:Back to re-reading John Grisham and feeling proud of the degree I shall receive soon. This book was about a lawyer who gives up being a public defender to start a new firm and make tons of money through various of class actions. The book is a classic example of how wanting to make too much money can in fact turn out to be the worst thing you could ever want.

45) Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler:This book revolves around a married woman who walks out on her family, her husband, her daughters and her sons and doesn’t stop till she reaches an unknown town, with unknown people and starts working all over again. She finds a new family and starts caring for new people and sends zero messages to her family. This book was weird and funny, however there were tons of times when someone who’s really tired of everything and everyone around them to relate to.

46) Gay Bombay by Parmesh Sahani:I finished this book on the 26th of December and this was one of my favouritest reads of the year. I loved everything in this book and loved everything this book stood for. This book was a thesis written by Parmesh Sahani for his degree at MIT and was one huge project filled with interviews, and personal experiences and facts and millions, and millions of ideologies and theories that I agreed with 10000000%.
This book made me very happy and very sad at the same time and the only thing I really hated was that the book was published back in 2008 and I read it in 2016. But I would recommend this b book to every single person.

So this ends the 46 books I read in 2016. I was so unbelievably proud of myself. I cried, and I cheered and I felt much more for these books than I did for humans and Idk what I would honestly do if I ever lost my ability to read.

Yesterday night, I was feeling really unwell and had a terrible stomach ache and a terrible head ache and thus I decided to skip Barcelona’s Champions League match with PSG because quite honestly, I didn’t think they would be able to win this.

Barcelona had to overturn a 0-4 deficit and everyone (including me) had huge doubts about this happening since it’s never happened!

So, I decided to sleep and wake up in the morning and check the score and pray for a good scoreline. And guess what is the first thing I see when I wake up and check my phone?

FC Barcelona – PSG : 6-1

I’m not going to lie: I legit lost my shit. I then sat and googled and looked through millions, and millions of articles and watched all the goals and cried tons of happy tears. Neymar scored a brilliant free kick and the last goal came in the 90th minute just when everyone thought Barcelona was done and eliminated.

Waking up to that scoreline was the happiest part of my week and it’s quite enough to keep me happy for a long time now!